My first-grader has her 100th day of school coming up. The teachers turn the day into one big party about the number 100. So I thought we could do our part at home and make a snack in honor of the day. We happened to have some chocolate candies, raisins, pretzels and Os cereal. We got them all out and counted out 100 pieces of each ingredient (give or take).
At school, they’re also doing some work with measurements in Math. So we chatted briefly about which ingredient would make the longest row and so on. But mostly it was fun to gather it all up. I think I’ve got school snack covered for next week now!
These are so good! I have yet to make my own chocolate-hazelnut spread. But it is completely on my list of things to do.
2 slices whole grain bread
1/2 of a ripe banana, sliced into 1/4″ slices
1 tablespoon Nutella or other chocolate hazelnut spread
1 teaspoon butter, divided
Preheat a saute pan over medium heat.
Place the banana slices on one slice of bread. Spread the nutella on the other slice of bread. Put the nutella slice of bread on top of the banana slice with the nutella side down.
Melt 1/2 teaspoon of the butter in the saute pan and swirl it around the bottom of the pan. Cook the sandwich for a few minutes or until golden brown. Remove the sandwich. Add the rest of the butter to the pan. Return the sandwich and cook the other side for a couple more minutes.
Cut the sandwich into small squares or shapes as your whim dictates. Serve. Allow to cool a few minutes if you are feeding young ones.
Yield: 1 sandwich
Prep-time: 10 minutes
Print
Recently, my three-year-old grew tired of clementines (gasp!). She is a great lover of novelty. Here are a few ways I’ve found to rekindle the magic:
Read the rest of this entry »
I’m not totally sure if this recipe is post-worthy. But my youngest just devoured several of them . I’m sure the chocolate sauce didn’t hurt, but still it is out of character for her to eat several of anything. I think this would be a nice treat for toddlers. To top it all off, I used up an over-ripe banana and some leftover rice. Bonus!
Read the rest of this entry »
My oldest, who will pretty much eat anything, does not like nut butter of any kind (at the moment). It’s bizarre, but I let it slide since she is an open-minded eater (and, honestly, what choice do I have?). In this recipe, chocolate saves the day and makes the nut butter palatable.
I made some chocolate sauce based on a recipe from The Fannie Farmer Cookbook
awhile ago. I intended to buy some, but the ingredient lists at the store were a little too frightening. Chocolate syrup would work just as well and there are a couple brands with short and understandable ingredient lists at the health food store and Trader Joe’s.
Read the rest of this entry »
This recipe is inspired by Kath’s Tribute to Oatmeal and is a mere shadow of her concoctions. Check it out. You’ll never look at oatmeal as a boring food ever again.
Read the rest of this entry »
These somehow manage to give me a sugar buzz even though they don’t seem to be totaly overloaded with it. I’ve really got to get some piece of software that will spit out nutrition information for recipes.
Anyway, these are tasty, as you can well imagine. It’s sort of like a reese’s peanut butter cup and a kit kat decided to quit their day jobs and move out to the country to start running their own organic co-op.
1/2 cup peanut butter (homogenized works best)
1/4 cup chocolate chips
3 tablespoons maple syrup
1 tablespoon ground flaxseed (optional)
1 1/2 cups corn flakes cereal
Place peanut butter, chocolate chips and maple syrup in a medium saucepan over low heat. Stir constantly with a rubber spatula until chocolate is melted and combined.
Remove saucepan from heat and stir in flaxseed. Immediately add cereal and stir gently with rubber spatula until well-coated.
Place mini muffin paper cups in mini muffin pan and spoon heaping tablespoons of the cereal mixture into the cups. Cover and allow to set for 1 hour. Serve or store in an airtight container.
Yield: approximately 22 clusters
Prep time: 15 minutes
Set time: 1 hour
Print
Cookies are a personal battle when it comes to making “healthy” snacks. When I first started investigating and experimenting, I tasted a lot of low-fat, low-sugar baked goods that were cookies in name but definitely not in spirit. Therefore, my official policy is that cookies should not be tinkered with and be allowed to do what they do best: deliver a luscious combination of fat and sugar.
I am nonetheless tempted to experiment from time to time. And simply because I’ve never eaten an avocado cookie before and avocados are so high in good-for-you fat, I’ve come up with this “healthier” cookie that I feel a little bit better about putting in my kid’s lunch box. Its taste is no where near a Toll House. But I feel like they are probably as close as I am going to get to a “healthy” cookie that my family still enjoys eating.
1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1 cup old fashioned rolled oats
¼ cup unsweetened shredded coconut
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
1 ripe haas avocado, pitted and skin removed
½ cup butter (1 stick), softened
1/3 cup sugar
1/3 cup brown sugar, lightly packed
1 large egg
½ cup low-fat milk
1/3 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips (optional)
Preheat oven to 350 F.
In a medium bowl whisk together the flour, oats, coconut, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.
Mash avocado with a fork in a large bowl until there are no large chunks remaining. Add butter and mix very well with avocado. Add sugars and stir well. Add egg and stir. Finally add the milk and stir until incorporated. Add the flour mixture and stir until combined. Fold in chocolate chips (if desired).
Drop heaping tablespoons full of batter onto ungreased baking sheets or jelly roll pans two inches apart. Bake for 15-17 minutes near the center of the oven, rotating once if necessary. Once the edges of the cookies start to brown, remove from oven and transfer to cooling rack with spatula. Allow to cool slightly and serve.
These cookies will soften considerably if left out overnight. They are best stored in the freezer in an airtight container and thawed on demand.
Makes 38 cookies.
Prep time: 20 minutes
Baking time: 30 minutes
Print
Surely I’m not the first person to have done this. But if you’ve heard of it before, don’t tell me. I’m busy being overly happy about my discovery. Oh, and the kids looovve these.
20 raspberries
20 white chocolate chips
Wash the raspberries by holding them under gently running water or submerging in a bowl of water and agitating gently. Allow the raspberries to air-dry by simply putting them on a towel. Once dry, insert one chip into each berry with flat side of the chip facing you. Serve.
Makes 2 servings.
Prep time: 5 minutes
Print
No
added sugar! That counts for something, right? These are bit more time-intensive than I’d like. But I managed to make them with a house full of my own kids and some guests running around today. The only part that required much thought was making the chocolate mixture and then all I had to do was check on them in the freezer a couple times, and viola I had an extremely well-received afternoon snack.
3 tablespoons nut butter (such as peanut or almond)
1/4 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 1/2 cups crispy brown rice cereal
1 1/2 cups vanilla frozen yogurt, slighly softened
In a small saucepan, stir the chocolate chips and nut butter over medium low heat until smooth. Remove the chocolate mixture from heat. Add cereal to saucepan and stir with a rubber spatula until well coated.
Divide the cereal mixture between the cups of a muffin pan (preferably silicone for easier removal). Each muffin cup should be approximately 1/2 full. Cover and place in freezer for 30 minutes or until hard.
Fill the remaining half of each muffin cup with the vanilla frozen yogurt. Do not mound the yogurt; rather keep it somewhat level. Place the muffin pan back in freezer and allow yogurt to refreeze for approximately one hour or longer.
To serve, carefully dislodge frosties from the muffin pan using fingers or a knife to loosen the edges.
Makes approximately 8 frosties.
Note for Young Ones:
Right out of the freezer, these treats can be a little tough to eat. If your kids are on the small side, let them thaw for a minute or cut them up for them. In addition, roughly break up some of the rice cereal with a metal spoon as you are coating it with the chocolate mixture. That way it might be less likely to be rough on your little one’s mouth.
Print
